Stanislaus County ag preservation debate keeps flapping

Cities fearing that a new policy could hamper growth throughout Stanislaus County are maneuvering to reverse its adoption.

Mayors of six of the county’s nine cities want one of their own, Hughson Mayor Matt Beekman, kicked off a panel that recently embraced a farmland preservation guideline. Beekman’s support of the controversial guideline allowed it to pass on a 3-2 vote despite strident opposition from seven cities, some of whose mayors see Beekman’s vote as a betrayal.

“It’s not the American way, to go against the majority,” said Riverbank Mayor Richard O’Brien.

Beekman said he did what he felt was right. “I’m going to do my homework and vote my conscience,” he said.

The struggle is bringing hardball politics to a normally obscure panel charged with, among other tasks, ruling on cities’ periodic requests to grow by annexing land. It’s called the Stanislaus Local Agency Formation Commission.

LAFCO’s March 25 vote set a formula for figuring how much money cities can charge developers when paving over farmland for houses or other buildings. The money can be banked to eventually buy farm conservation easements somewhere else in the county, preserving one agricultural acre for each one developed.

Although cities can choose other farmland-saving options, such as having voters approve urban limits, a majority believe the formula could drive up easement values and see the formula as an affront to cities’ traditional land-use authority. Leaders of all cities in the county, except Turlock and Hughson, asked LAFCO to postpone a vote and allow time to work out a compromise.

With several mayors and city managers in the audience, commissioners narrowly rejected the plea and approved the formula.

“Our policy is a good one,” said Jim DeMartini, a farmer, county supervisor and current chairman of LAFCO. “If you don’t like (the formula), choose another option.”

The formula requires fees equal to 35 percent of average prices in five comparable land sales, plus a 5 percent endowment. Currently, that’s about $7,305 per acre.

The issue sparked when Patterson in the fall considered charging $2,000 an acre. Farm advocates say that’s not enough, but some cities contend that the formula artificially skews the free market.

“Instead of ‘commissioners,’ maybe we should be calling ourselves ‘comrades,’” O’Brien said. He considers the vote a “punitive action against Patterson, and (that) is not what the commission is supposed to be doing.”

Patterson Mayor Luis Molina said his city, which experienced rare economic development success during the recession by attracting logistics centers, was “unfairly or inaccurately” assigned the role of lightning rod in the LAFCO flap. It’s conceivable that a city could have poor judgment on any given issue, he said, “but can six cities be wrong?”

“I respect Mayor Beekman,” Molina continued, “but he’s there to represent all the cities. Why not slow this down and table it?”

Beekman is in a peculiar position. He leads the smallest city in the county, with 6,640 people. Hughson is a vanguard for farmland preservation, requiring 2 acres of farmland permanently preserved for every one developed, the most progressive policy in these parts. He spent a year on the board of a statewide organization of LAFCOs.

A beekeeper providing a service to farms, Beekman may have stronger agricultural sympathies than other mayors, and both county supervisors with voting LAFCO roles, DeMartini and Terry Withrow, rely at least partly on farm income. Withrow also is a certified public accountant.

When the seven cities came out against the proposed formula, “I tried to work with each mayor and explain why their (position) was flawed,” Beekman said. “They didn’t listen to me. I got silence. They wouldn’t engage with me on a policy level because it was a done deal and (I was to) get out of their way.”

Mayors of Ceres, Oakdale, Riverbank, Waterford, Newman and Patterson are pursuing a new strategy: altering LAFCO’s voting composition, which could position them to kill the fees formula.

Among the five voting commissioners are two county supervisors, two representatives from among the nine city councils and a public member selected by the others. The two city representatives are chosen by a “city selection committee” composed of the nine mayors; they can switch things up if a majority agrees to convoke a meeting.

Two months ago, the mayors chose Beekman to lead the selection committee; by Friday, he had received written requests from six mayors asking him to call a meeting to remove him as a voting LAFCO commissioner. By state law, he has 60 days to schedule that meeting.

“I’m going to comply, obviously,” Beekman said. “But the way they’ve gone about it is so unprofessional. They’re just shutting me down.”

Mayors of the county’s two largest cities, Modesto and Turlock, did not join the others. Modesto Mayor Garrad Marsh was in the minority when his City Council voted to oppose the fees formula. Turlock, like Hughson, did not oppose it; however, Turlock Councilwoman Amy Bublak is a voting LAFCO member and strongly criticized the formula.

Representing the public at large on the commission is Brad Hawn, a former Modesto councilman who sided with cities in wanting to postpone the formula vote.

This story was originally published April 4, 2015 at 5:38 PM with the headline "Stanislaus County ag preservation debate keeps flapping."